Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World

How do underdogs, facing far stronger opponents, sometimes win? In the tradition of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce’s Practical Radicals offers winning strategies, history, and theory for a new generation of activists.

Based on interviews with leading organizers, Practical Radicals combines “the hard-earned wisdom of our movement ancestors, the rigorous theory of serious practitioners and academics and the functional tools organizers need to spring into action” (In These Times). Incorporating stories of organizations and movements that have won, including Make the Road NY, the St. Paul Federation of Educators, the welfare rights movement, the Working Families Party, New Georgia Project, Occupy Wall Street, 350.org, the Fight for 15, and Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Practical Radicals “takes inspiration from successful social movements to identify tactics that pay off.” (The Guardian).

With a sweeping new afterword by the authors addressing the challenges of 2025 and beyond, the authors explore how the seven strategies the book highlights can provide a toolkit for underdogs looking both to resist authoritarianism and to win alternatives. At a time of immense uncertainty inside the United States, “this crucial book is for everyone who cares about the future of racial, gender, and economic justice and the future of democracy.” (Dorian Warren, president of Community Change).

Deepak Bhargava has been a leader in justice movements for over thirty years. He is currently a distinguished lecturer at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He is a cofounder of Leadership for Democracy and Social Justice and past president of Community Change. The coeditor (with Ruth Milkman and Penny Lewis) of Immigration Matters (The New Press), he lives in New York City.

Stephanie Luce is a professor of labor studies and sociology at CUNY and the author of numerous books, including Labor Movements: Global Perspectives, as well as the coauthor (with Robert Pollin) of The Living Wage (The New Press). She lives in New York City.